Episode 237: Achieving Goals with Rachel Carroll

Aren't you fed up with calling a business only to reach a voicemail, phone tree, automated system? Or worse, someone who sounds busy, bored, or actually annoyed you are calling. I can't believe how many businesses we interact with spend money marketing to drive phone calls and then completely fail at handling those calls. A full time assistant costs a lot of money, but at a fraction of the cost. Abbyy Connect provides businesses with a world class, personal, professional and courteous team of receptionists specifically trained to take their calls. Based in the 247 city of Las Vegas, Abby Connect has been wowing business callers for over 13 years. No wonder they are the highest rated live receptionist service for our listeners. Abby Connect is offering a no obligation free trial. And after your trial is over, our listeners will also receive $95 off their first bill, but only when you sign up at our special link. Abby connect.com profit first. That's abbyconnect.com profittfirst Sign up today to experience the difference. So let's try this out. So everyone is listening in right now. We are rebranding the show to be Entrepreneurship Elevated. I've tasked Kelsey with finding the most impactful, energizing song and this one she found. Let's try with the script. In today's episode, we're going to learn about profit first and the implementation of it with Rachel Carroll. You're about to hear that and so much more on this episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated.

Hi, everybody. I'm Bob Roth.

Right. That's horrible. Can you pick something better than that? All right, I'm gonna revert back to our original song. You keep shopping around for us, okay?

Okay.

In today's episode, we're going to talk about implementing profit first in your business. This business is a neuromuscular therapist. And yes, Carol, I'm sorry. Rachel Carroll has achieved profitably using this method. She's going to share how you're about to hear all that and so much more on today's episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. Go. Here we go. I like the robot entrepreneurship elevator. All right, so when you search for songs, I personally am slanting towards something with a little more energy than that last song you played. What? I know, I know. It wasn't bad. Are you marking down that you're going to use that song?

No.

Hey, guys. I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit first and Clockwork and a brand new book. I just got a book deal. I don't have the name for it yet, but it's coming out and I'm on a Mission. I'm on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. You know, there's financial poverty, there's time poverty, there's happiness poverty. We're out to fix it all. And that's what we do on this episode and every episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. I'm joined in studio with Kelsey Ayers.

Hello, everybody. You can find us on itunes. Stitcher tunein radio, Spotify. Nice job, iheartradio. And please, please leave us a review. We are going to bribe you with something if you just leave a review. Send me Kelseykemcallowitz.com I will send you a copy of profit first or clockwork or pumpkin plan.

Yeah, you pick it. Yeah, ideally, pick one in the Penguin series. So I also have toilet paper. Entrepreneur search. Those were self published. We'd rather you pick a penguin book because then Penguin pays for the shipping. They're not sponsored. They don't even listen to this stuff. And Kelsey is, by the way, spelled spelled K e l s e y@mike michalowicz.com. kelsey, before we dig into today's episode, I want to know, what have you been up to?

Haven't been up to too much. I. I told you, I hurt my knee. So, like, I haven't done any kind of physical activity in a while.

How'd you hurt your knee?

Kickboxing.

Oh, yeah, that one. That's. That's. That's like a month ago.

Yeah.

He's still injured.

Yeah.

Yeah. My sister thinks I had a torn meniscus.

First of all, is your sister a doctor?

She's a physical therapist.

Okay. Okay. Oh, okay. Okay.

Because I was like, I don't understand. Like, I still have a hard time putting weight on it. Like, I can't do, like, squats and stairs still bother me.

You were doing squats, first of all, this morning at the morning meeting, you were doing squats. I saw you squatting on the wall.

Yeah, I'm not saying. I'm not doing that. I'm obviously doing stairs.

They're in pain.

I'm just. I feel it. Yeah. Like, I. Not fully healed.

Does a torn meniscus heal on its own?

It can if it's in the right place. I think there are certain placements where you need surgery for, but mine's obviously not that bad.

Okay, well, we got to get that. You better get that fixed. Yeah.

So anyway, I haven't really done hiking.

Or your favorite activities.

I was like, I started running just before that, and I didn't do that.

Yeah, so you did have a. A pretty long running. Career once you got started.

Yeah. It's like two times you ever.

That's awesome. That's two times in one week, though. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's not.

Or two weeks. It's fine.

It's really not the quantity runs. It's the frequency within a relative time period. The fact you belted out two runs, two big runs within two weeks.

Yeah.

That's unbelievable.

Yeah, really big.

So this morning I went for a run.

Yeah.

I was telling you guys at the huddle and it was so dark. I went. I went at 6 in the morning, which is still dark. And the. It was very cloudy, so it was pitch black. So I had like one of these running lights you put in your head, which you need. Where I live, there's no lights.

Yeah.

So I'm running and the snow's coming down, but it's very light snow. But because you're running out, it feels like a blizzard. And then there was deer running around outside all over. It felt like I was in a winter.

I know, I love that.

Yeah, it's like a winter. Like a snow globe or something.

Yeah. You know, I loved this snow. I'm like really bummed that winter is here, but it was so nice to be in my house and have like the fire and it was just peaceful.

Well, your house is awesome. So I finally had the chance to visit Amy, myself, Paul. We all came up. We did a retreat effectively at your house. And what I love about your house is you have a. As a. Has a heart where that furnace. That furnaces. Where that stove is the heart of your house. And you can see it from the kitchen. You can see it from the dining area. You can see it from upstairs. You can see from the bathroom. Practically.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I guess you could.

No, you do.

You could.

Because if I recall correctly, your bathroom does not have a door. Honey, is that true?

You recall incorrectly, sir.

No. You didn't have a door in your bathroom. Remember that? And you were.

That did happen early on.

Yeah. And you had guessed.

Not when you were there. Yeah. My book club was coming over.

People are like, I think go to the bathroom. You're like, is it kind of awkward? But how long we be in there?

Because we're all girls. It's fine, right?

Depends the activity. The activity you're participating in. Because the one of the bathrooms doesn't have a door. So we'll be participating with you. It's all girls. It's fine.

I ran out to Home Depot, I got a saw. So that I could file down the door and I put it back on before anybody got there.

And you did a nice job on your floors. I was very impressed by your floors. I actually. Would you ever think about doing it at other people's houses?

No, Nothing about that was enjoyable.

Oh, it was really nice. It's a very light wood. It adds a lot of color to your house. And. And I was inspecting it because when. When people do their own work, do it yourselfers, there's usually gaps and bubbles. I couldn't find a single flaw. Yeah, there's a lot besides the bathroom not having a door.

And I didn't. I still haven't finished the. The quarter round molding around some of.

The baseboard, but I don't know, I. I was. I was blown away. I was pretty impressed.

Thank you.

Hey, do we have any listener mail?

We do.

May we. May we hear it as a shout out, right?

Yes.

So this comes from bazinga Austin Hance. He left us a review on itunes.

Nice, Austin. Did he get a book? What book did he pick?

He did Profit first.

Nice, Austin. Well done.

Yeah, so he says, I read Prava first and immediately implemented the process in my business. After reading the book, I tried to learn more practical tips and systems. The podcast has shown real people doing this in their business as well as what else helps their business run smoother.

Nice, Austin. And we have a real person coming on today. Yeah, usually we don't have real people. I mean, they're all real people, but they're not real people. Means nothing. You know, what are. We have the T shirts. Well, the T shirts in time for this. So the next person that posts a review and we send them a book, let's just throw in a T shirt too.

Yeah, okay.

Get their, you know, their shirt size. But don't. You can't. Here's the rule. You can't ask for a T shirt because we're only getting like 15 or 20 of these made, I guess. So just if we have one, we'll come back to you and say, hey, we want to give you a T shirt. What size do you wear? Yeah, and it better be medium, because all we ordered was medium.

We should do like a survey of.

I'm sorry, should do a what? A what? A sir way.

Everything.

What should we do a sir way of.

We should do a sir way of their favorite made up word of yours.

Oh, yes, that would be a great sir way.

Yeah, we should include so way.

We should. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no.

You know what Amy said yesterday she called me Kelpie.

Kelthy. She. She lisped it.

Yeah. She was, like, thinking of something else with the th sound.

She's like, hey, Kelthy. So I think here. I. I love your ideas. Can you make sure you do this? Let's have a page. You can do it on the Mike McCalla website. Call it the Grand Surway. Right? So that's the title of it. And then what's your favorite word? And then let's have people go into Google Docs or Google Forms. We'll have a vote. And then we'll make T shirts around that word also. Yeah, okay. Okay. But we can't wait all the way till this episode happens, so you're gonna have to figure that out, how to get that survey out in advance.

Yeah, you got it.

Okay. Okay. All right. I think our nonsense is over. Now. The important stuff.

What did you just say? Unnsense.

All of our nonsense is over. Did I. Oh, no. Did I. Did I mess that up?

I thought you were saying announcements.

Oh, all of our nonsense is up.

Yeah.

Yeah. So all of our nonsense is over. But now we have the important stuff. Our sponsors, corporate partners, make the show a reality receipt bank. Can you guess the other one? The one who's the other one?

Nick Stevens.

Yes. I don't know. I don't know. We'll talk about them more in a little bit. I want to get to the me the show right now because my little chime went off. We're at the banter over period. Rachel is a. This is Rachel Carroll, by the way. Rachel Carroll is a certified neuromuscular therapist and is the owner and founder of the Neuromuscular Studio. She has been. Oh, and it fades out. A practicing licensed massage therapist since 2002. 2003. She began her private practice and founded the. Because it fades out. There's something wrong with our printer. A studio concentrating her efforts on rehabilitating athletes and treating the injuries of performing artists. And I don't know if you know this, but I met Rachel at Entree Leadership, where I had a good opportunity, the great opportunity to speak there. Thanks to Dave Ramsey and his team. Welcome to our show, Rachel. How are you?

Welcome, Rachel.

I'm doing well.

Sorry, our printer kind of faded out. It's weird.

I think it's that word neuromuscular. Everybody kind of, like, skims over it, including our printer.

Literally, the printer's like, neuromuscular. So you're a German car enthusiast. Let's get right to it. What's your Favorite German car.

Oh my goodness. Well, big fan of Porsche. Yeah, we have four of them. Several are investment, so a part of our investment portfolio. But yeah, I have a Cayenne for a daily driver that has 190,000 miles on it and I am driving that thing to the ground because it's paid for and I'm saving cash for my next one. So yeah, but big fan of the air cooled 911 so those things are awesome.

Oh my gosh. So a car as an investment sounds like an oxymoron to me. What year are these cars? When do they become investments as opposed to losing money?

So my husband is actually really, really good at knowing the car market and this is just a piece of our portfolio. Of course we're not putting all of our money into this. But he is great at finding low mileage cars in the vintage, knowing the market that it's going to appreciate pretty quickly. So we always buy low, kind of like real estate buy low and then just, you know, build the equity. And so the favorite, my Favorite one is 97,911 Black on Black and we bought it with I think 46,000 miles on it. And that thing is awesome. It's the last year that they made the air cooled engines, so yeah, which is a big deal. In 99 they went to water cooled with a radiator. Completely different car, even though it's only two years different. Different in design, different in drive, all of that. So yeah, so we've got one of those. And then we also have an 86944 Turbo in guards red. That's a really cool car. All of these cars, you know, we bought on the low end like I said and you know, and they have appreciated which is pretty cool. And then my investment car is an 87 Mercedes 560 SL. I bought it with 27,000 miles on, found it in New Hampshire and you know, snatched that one up. And I think I've. Gosh, I think I've. I can't remember what percentage I've made on it, but had it two years and definitely is in the investment portfolio as well.

So there's a song with 87 Mercedes, I believe.

Oh, there is, there is, yes. And everybody sings it to me.

Yay.

Yeah.

So there's a joke, it's not a joke but about German cars and American cars in Japanese and goes like this, it says an American car when this is an old joke because it's really not true anymore. But when they're building an American car, they put a door on if it fit close enough, it would stay a German car. They put a door on it and it fits close enough. They put the next door on it until it fits just perfectly right. They do it over and over. The Japanese. They put the door on. It just fits. That was the joke. That's the joke about Japanese manufacturing, how efficient it was. Yeah, I know, I know. People right now are. They're like, putting the show on pause. They're like, oh, my God, I've never laughed so hard.

So hilarious.

Okay, so let's get into your business, because I know you implemented profit first, but there was a time before you had profit first. Tell us about what your business practice does and how the numbers looked years back.

Sure. Okay, so we've been in business for 15 years. I say we. I am, of course, the founder and the business owner, but my group of therapists, we all are collectively working towards one goal and vision with the business. We provide neuromuscular and other medical massage therapies to help people with chronic pain and injuries, and we help them have less pain, more movement, and a better life. That's our tagline. And that actually came from client feedback on the three things that we help them achieve. I did some Donald Miller story brand work and fit that all in, and it's been good for us. So, yeah, so 15 years started out with just me, and then after about six years or so, I needed to find another therapist to help me with overflow. And then, you know, it's just kind of grown organically over time. I do follow Dave Ramsey, been an entre leader for a long time. Did his all access coaching, business coaching for about four years and whatnot. And, you know, my business from day one has never had debt. That's one thing I firmly believe in that businesses, in order to have stability, there are a lot of business owners that are out there that think, oh, I have to take an SBA loan or I have to take out a line of credit to make payroll, and all that. To me, that means you're just moving too fast. I firmly believe in growing organically over time, paying for things in cash as I go, and it served us quite well. Now, there were some trials and tribulations. You know, 2008, when the economy crashed, I was very happy that I didn't have debt. That was a monumental year for us in surprise numbers. Surprise numbers in a positive way. There were a lot of people that came to our studio that still put their money into and investing in their treatments, and they chose just not to Go out to dinner or, you know, not to. Yeah, and you know, not to do. Not to spend money on, you know, something at the mall or whatever. The feedback that we kept getting was we only have one body and this is the thing that helps us feel better. You know, we can change our car, we can change our house, we can, you know, stop eating out, you know, all these other things to help with our budget. But we only have one body and we want to take care of it. And so we really fostered that and cultivated that idea. And we just got down to work and we just made sure that we had people coming in and our numbers. And my business actually grew in 2008 and 2009. But I would not have been able to do that had I not had a good business sense, had I not had debt hanging over my head with payments to make. So all of those things were positive as far as using cash to build stability and then also to grow the business. And then that's evolved over the years as well. I got pregnant and had a daughter. It took five months off of maternity leave. I was very happy for my savings account, my business savings account and my personal savings account. Again, Dave Ramsey teaches both. Make sure you have both. Very happy for that. And I was able to stay home with my daughter for five months. I also had to have an unexpected surgery. I had a hip cartilage, a hip labrum surgery three years ago. And that knocked me out of business personally, not treating clients for about 12 weeks. And then I went back extremely part time. And so again, unexpected, but very happy that I had my retained earnings in my business savings account. So all of this leads up to about 18 months ago when I was introduced to Profit First. So I already had some key things in place clearly. But I felt like just with knowing that I needed savings and knowing not to overextend, you know, rely on debt and you know, all of those things. But when I read Profit First, I'm a very detail oriented person. If you know the disc assessment. I am a C and an S, more C than S and so I am all about the details. So what I loved about Profit first is that it was actually a plan and I felt like I had a great understanding of where my money was going until I read your book and then there were some big light bulb moments. So what I've done the most in implementing Profit first has been to make sure that I'm using. I'm taking a 10% transfer from into my business savings. Five percent of that is devoted to Continually beefing up my retained earnings until I'm at that point. And then the other 5% is my profit draw. Once my retained earnings are at a good standpoint to where I have another six months of business expenses kind of waiting in the wings, then I will then take the 10% draw every quarter.

So you sound like the exception from the get go. Many people that come on our show or I've worked with personally, you know, racked up tons of debt, desperate situation. They're seeking a way out. It sounds like if you didn't do profit first, I think your business would be just fine. I mean, it sounds like you're doing.

Pretty darn well without would be fine, but it can be better. You know, I could take more profit for sure. Where I was before profit first, I was using my profit to reinvest back into my. Which is, of course, not a bad thing. Right. I just wasn't taking that money to compensate myself for all of the hours that I work. Up until about three months ago, I was working about 70 to 75 hours a week.

Now we're getting some juicy stuff.

Yes, yes. I read Clockwork. Thank you very much. And I am designing everything. And I've read Pumpkin Plan also. Thank you. So working on that. But yes. So up until that point, I mean, I was organized, but I was like, oh, I need to spend money on this. Oh, I need to spend money on that. Oh, let's spend money. Yeah, Google AdWords. Let's spend money on all these things that I was spending money on that I didn't really need to. So kind of like Dave's baby steps and whatnot. This is kind of similar, right? Like, okay, let's look at your budget. Let's look at, you know, and let's put the profit in there. Because guess what? You got to take a profit. You know?

Tell me if this lands with you. One thing that people say is, I reinvested profit. And I'm like, oh, that means it was never profit. It's just an expense. You put an account, you called it profit. Or your accountant said, congratulations on your profit, but it never was because that money went back into buying stuff.

Right.

Do you feel it's really just a deferred expense? And maybe that term, by calling it profit temporarily actually gives us a good feeling. That's unjustified.

Yeah, I agree with that. I actually really had to look at my expenses and be like, okay, is that really necessary? Kind of like a personal budget? Like, okay, is that. Is that shirt really necessary? Okay, is that Spending that amount of money on whatever for my office, is that really necessary? Is that an investment in my business? Is that a good return on my investment? And I just like took a marker and I lined through everything and I started canceling. And then all of a sudden there was my profit.

What are the things you canceled? Give me some ideas.

Oh, my gosh. Like magazine subscriptions, okay? Every doctor's office has like a million magazine subscriptions, okay? Nobody reads them. Guess what? Because we're punctual and we're on time. Like, we don't keep people. I shouldn't even have a waiting room because people walk through the door, we're ready for them, we take them, and they get them on the treatment table. But, you know, these magazine subscriptions, I mean, I don't know how many I had, but they're like, you know, 25, 35, you know, 45 a year. Well, that all adds up, you know.

Holy crap, I got this buzzer going off my head. There's a great indicator I'm hearing from you of a doctor's office on how quickly they service you. Look at the magazines. If they have magazines, clearly they're preparing you to queue up and wait.

Right? Yeah.

That's fantastic.

What's it there for? I mean, you know, it's killed time. Prior to smartphones, you know, prior to smartphones, you had to sit there for, you know, half an hour and like, look at a magazine, slip through People.

Magazine, page after page. Oh, there's John Travolta.

I don't do that anyway because I just, I don't like to touch other magazines and other people. You know what I mean?

It does creep me out too, Right.

If they've been in a doctor's office for, you know, if the magazine is like a year, I'm definitely not going to touch that. My magazines, at least at my office, like, we recycle. You change about, you know, every month, so they're not there too terribly long. But, but anyway, so all of those things, like those small things, you know, those are the things that. Yeah.

Any other things that you cut that maybe traditionally you would say you can't cut that. Like maybe, maybe.

Oh, advertising, Advertising. So well, so. So my business was. Was based on grassroots, has always been based on grassroots and word of mouth referral. And about three or four years ago, I'm like, oh, I need to spend money in advertising. Didn't really need to. And I found over time, as I cut, I just gave myself a small line item budget. Once I started with A profit first. And it was amazing how I just eliminated that expense. I still did a little bit because I felt like there were some key areas that were giving me a good ROI with the business. But I just went ahead and I just scratched those and everybody else. Other businesses were like, oh, well, you need to advertise if you're not advertising on Google, if you're not doing Yelp, if you're not doing Facebook ads or whatnot. But we just went back to our existing client base and those leads are already there. They know, they want to tell their friends, they want to share their excitement with what we do and how we've helped them have less pain and more movement and a better life. When you're eager to tell people about when you've had a good experience and someone has changed your life. So we really honed in on that and just really cultivating those relationships. And that's free.

I love it. Is that a remarkable service, is the best ad you can ever have. And so what kind of savings are we talking about? Like, I don't know if you can give us dollars or percentages, but by cutting those magazines, cutting the ads, cutting other stuff, what kind of savings did that represent?

Probably six to seven hundred a month.

Damn. And then where does that money go? Then you're putting in a profit account.

Or you're taking out. Now it's in profit Porsches with it. Okay, but no, hey, no. So let me tell you. So let me tell you, I'm very proud actually, because my profit distribution is now going, like I said, to fund a new to me car whenever that is my new A to B car to replace my daily driver. And I got a set dollar amount. And you know what? I just keep doing my transfers every quarter. And when I get to that dollar amount, then I take that cash and I go buy my next daily driver that I'll have for another 190,000 miles. And yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't want to do a car payment on that kind of a thing, you know, it's just not. Yeah, I don't know. So. So that. And my daughter, she's five almost, and we're taking her to Disneyland for the first time for her birthday in December. And all of that is being funded by my profit first distribution.

Yes. I love her.

Yeah.

Disneyland. That's the one.

In California.

I love memories with her.

It's Disneyland.

California.

Does Florida.

Disneyland is California.

California.

No, Disneyland is California. So I'm in Phoenix. So it's just a Quick, hop over. Just. We'll drive whatnot. But yeah, so I'm excited, right, because I get to take my hard earned money and I get to do something awesome for my family and build memories with my family.

Yeah, I love that. Talk about the car, though. I'm thinking some of your patients may see you drive up in this. Hey, it's a Porsche. It's nice, but it's got 190,000 miles. It's got some wear and tear. Maybe you weren't doing so well. I hear some people saying your car represents your character, represents who you are. Is that really true from your experience?

Well, I think everybody. It does represent your character and the fact that you're selective in what you drive. I have had some clients like, oh, you drive a Cayenne. I'm like, yeah, it's a 2004 and it has 190,000 miles on it. And I'm going to drive it to the ground. And it's great because I can haul my family in it. And, you know, I mean, you just, you go on and on and on. You know, everybody thinks about, you know, a certain badge on a car being a luxury. But I'll be honest. So with what I do, I actually see a lot of people who are in back pain because they are in a car that doesn't fit them. Interesting. My car fits me. And I drive 25 miles each way to work about. And so if I'm going to be stuck in a car for 50 miles a day, 45 minutes each way, whatnot, I want to be comfortable and I want to make sure that my back is supported, that I feel ergonomically it works for me. And so there are other models of car that would definitely be cheaper, but not really because I've definitely got my money out of it.

Yeah, I think it's interesting, like, oh, if I want to be an effective salesperson, I better drive up in the fancy car to show my success. Now I hear the other side too, people. I better drive a clunker because I don't think my customers are taking. I'm taking advantage of my customers. Because at the end of the day, what matters is what satisfies what you need and is within your means. And that's what you're.

Correct. And whatever choice you make, you own it. If you want to drive, I don't know, I mean, a Honda Accord, whatever, and you love it. Great. Rock it. That's awesome. You know, but, you know, that might not be somebody else's choice. You know, I Think you should love what you drive.

I think love what you drive. I think when it comes to profitability for a business, it really is about the mental game. And I ashamed. I'm ashamed of this because this only happened about a month ago. I went to a speaking event at some country club. I don't know where it was, but Pennsylvania or New Jersey. And I don't have a car right now. So I have a. I have a Dodge Durango that is fully paid for and I have a BMW that's fully paid for it. Both of them have over 100,000 miles. My daughter has taken the BMW, so she has that. My son, who's got a license recently takes the Durango. I literally am carless and I don't have. I'm saving to buy the next car, but we don't have the money yet, so I just can't and won't buy a car. I drove down in the Durango. The front bumper is torn off not because of him. I'm actually the one who went over a curb and backed out. And it kind of reacts the bumper, you know. But I didn't park in the front, even though there's parking spots. I parked in the back and my head's like, oh, I don't want people to see me walking in because I don't want to be bugged. But it's like, oh, no. The reason I'm doing this is I don't want people to see the, the scratched up Dodge Durango I'm driving when I'm the keynote speaker. Shame on me. Shame on me for not like to Rachel's point, not owning it. You know what I'm saying?

Well, but that's a talking point, right? That's a speaking point. That's an opportunity to be like, yeah, I could have, you know, rolled up in my brand new Mercedes that I leased, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I don't. Like, I live what I am, a living testament to what I do.

Yeah, yeah. But I didn't have the courage to do that. I didn't want to have to face that conversation. That's what now I'm realizing as I reflect back upon that, like, like, and the fact that other people, if anyone else cares, like I shouldn't care that other cares, like that's their issue, but that I care that they might care. I don't know that that reveals something.

Or letting somehow your car define you.

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty sad of me. Now, now, now I have self loathing. I think it Was a gross. It was absolutely a gross.

Now you have awareness.

Yeah, that's true. I've grown.

You'll be more thoughtful about it.

I've grown a little bit. What are the other things you discovered is doing profit first? Did you discover anything about the operations of your business, what's profitable, what services are, what are not, and so forth?

Well, I quickly. I realized that my office overhead is more than it needs to be right now. It's challenging. Well, I've got another year on my lease and, you know, definitely looking to see where the health of the business is in about six months and whatnot. The challenge for me is that as a massage therapist, you really need to be careful, of course, of, you know, what environment your office is at. I don't want to be in an area where my clients will feel uncomfortable, like New Jersey.

I had to get a New Jersey.

Joke out, you know, like I could find a cheaper office in some place that maybe my client that would be better for my. The health of my finance, the financial health of my business. But my clients, you know, I don't know, they might not want to come visit me there.

Finances, right?

It's this balance. Right. So I love where I am now. I think it's great. I would love to stay there. So I'm actively working on increasing revenue and growing the businesses of my other therapists that work with me in order to help me stay in that location. And it wasn't a bad move. It was definitely a move that was needed, and it was a move that was calculated and planned out. What I wasn't expecting was in the move, we lost about 10% of our clientele. This was six years ago. Now we're back up and we're good, but, yeah, about 10%. And we only moved five miles away. And that's the one thing that a lot of clients, a lot of businesses don't realize is that nobody likes change your clients don't like. You could move to another suite in the same complex, but because it's a different suite, it has a different feature, it has a different layout, it's changed, and people may have aversion to that. I never thought that. I was like, hey, I'm moving to a better part of town. I've got this nicer office. I can easily afford it. Everybody's going to love it. And there were some pushbacks on that. So, yeah, that was definitely unexpected. And again, had I not had my retained earnings and my business savings account and not had the tools of building business and whatnot we would have had some challenges. So, you know, so with that experience, I'm also looking at, okay, where my next office, if I do need to move locations, what does that look like? You know, am I ready for that? Am I prepared for that? And I have to weigh the pros and cons of, you know, perhaps a more expensive lease in this current space. I've always told myself I have lots of physicians that refer to my office and physical therapists and whatnot. And we have a lot of people that drive expensive extended periods, you know, so in Phoenix, I'm kind of on the southern, more Southern type part of the community. And I've got clients that drive over an hour, you know, from the Northwest, you know, part of the Valley, you know, to come see us because, you know, because of what we do, it's very specialized and very limited. And hopefully they're driving a car with.

Horrible seats so that you get more back work out in the.

That's awesome. So we. So, you know, they always, it always comes up in conversation, oh, you need to have a second location up in blah, blah, blah, blah, or you need to have a second location out of here, blah, blah, blah. And as a business owner, you know, you think about that and you're like, oh, people are wanting to, wanting me to be closer to them. That's a really good idea. And then you look at it on paper like, okay, that's a second overhead. That's me hiring an office manager to manage both. That's more money in payroll. That's a non revenue generating position. You know, you start looking at all of those things and I'm like, no, I'm going to stay in this space even if my rent is more expensive in a couple of years with a lease renewal, until I am bursting at the seams as far as our business operations. And then I think would be a better choice to make to look at a satellite location or to look at just a bigger space, you know, all in one. So, yeah, I don't know, you know, it's a work in progress. You know, nothing in business is set in stone. You know, you're always. Every quarter I'm, you know, readjusting and restrategizing and coming up with, you know, something new. But. But yeah, we just celebrated 15 years, so we got to be doing something right.

Oh, clearly. It's just before we let you go, just about profit first, the future of it. So. So you've implemented profit first, you've had some realizations, you're making tweaks to Your business, where do you see the next year with profit first? What are you going to do with the system?

So in the next year, how I have it planned out is I'm going to be really looking at again, beefing up my retained earnings. So hopefully with increased revenue, I've got my huge Black Friday gift certificate sale. Last year's campaign netted 228% above 2016. So, yes.

So now this Black Friday for neuromuscular therapy doesn't compute very well.

Yeah, so I only. So we never discount our services. And so what we do on Black Friday, in Black Friday weekend, we give a 10% off. They can buy what is a studio card. So basically it's a gift card in a certain dollar amount, and they get 10% off of that. 10% is all that I can afford with margin. So my therapists are paid very well because we're all specialists. So that's what I can carve out. And so that's what we do. So we do 10%. And they know it's the one time of year that they can save money on their sessions and that people, neuromuscular therapy, I mean, you have to come in on a regular basis in order to receive results. If you're not coming in every week for a while, you're basically wasting your money. So people are invested in their treatments when they come to see us, and so this is their way of doing that. So now, this year, this year I have a goal that's, let's see here, about 50 or 60% above what we did last year. And that's calculated based on new clients and, you know, also based on the work that I've been doing on a campaign. So even though I'm taking a 10% hit at the very beginning with that, it's guaranteed work for our office for up to the next year. So I'm okay doing that as long as I have it calculated. So that's kind of our goal. And then profit first, of course, goes in with that. So I take my profit distribution, I transfer all that money from the gift cards into my business savings account and then move it into opex. Once that person comes in and redeems their gift card, then it goes out to paying my therapists. So I guess with profit first over the next six months, let's say utilizing all of those to continue to build up my retained earnings so that if I do need to make an office move at the end of next year, I can do that and then also just, you know, increase profit for Me personally, so that I can continue to, you know, save up money for my new car and, you know, and do some really cool experiences with my family.

Take your six year old then to dis. Disneyland. Right? She's five now. Go again.

Yeah, she's gonna be five in December 11th, so we're gonna be heading over there. So it'll be fun.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right, Rachel, well, thank you for joining us. Before we let you go, where can any of our guests, if they want muscular therapy or just reach out to you and learn more, where can they go?

Sure. So my website is nmtstudio.com so it stands for neuromuscular therapy. And definitely check us out. Check out what we're doing. There are neuromuscular therapists all over the country if you need assistance finding somebody in your area. Kelsey, sounds like you would be a good candidate for neuromuscular therapy with your knee. So we can definitely help you locate somebody there that is trained and certified.

Let's get you to a couple sessions. Why don't we do it? The company will pay for it. That way we can talk about on the show.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, it. So go for a couple sessions, but if it costs, if it's more than two sessions, you're on your own, kiddo. Cool. All right. Thank you so much, Rachel. Hang tight. We want to talk to you after the show, but we'll let you go for now.

All right, thanks, guys.

All right, so in a second, Kels, we're going to talk about what we learned. We're going to learn what doctor you go to. Better not be actually be funny. If it's a pervy doctor, like, oh, he was really creepy, it wouldn't be funny at all. I think it'll be funny. I had a bad experience with the.

I guess there's a line. Right, Right.

What's a podiatrist? Is that who works near foot or is that podiatrist just a little bit creepy? Yeah, just the way the guy. I don't know. I don't know. It just. It just was a little bit too into the foot exam.

Like, you think he had a fetish?

I don't know. That's what I questioned. I don't know. It wasn't that creepy, but I don't know. It felt like there's caressing, there's. There's holding and then there's caressing of feet.

I feel like it's your kind of sphere of influence, almost like. Like that's what he does all day long.

Exactly. Exactly.

You know, focus.

I wonder if he behaves differently, like if it's a guy's foot or a woman's foot. Like is he a little more cautious about his. His caressment.

Yeah, caressment.

That's what I write, that one. Caressment. Yeah, foot caressment. Make sure you write that down. All right, cows? I want to learn what you learned. I want to learn what I learned, which I already know, but I'm going to reveal it. And then I do want to go over a listener mail. But first, corporate partner, corporate buddies. Nextiva VoiceOver IP phone system. You know, if there's anything that separates a standard neuromuscular therapist from the exceptional, it's their phone system. We all know that. We all know that. You think it's the magazines in the waiting room, really. I mean, new, fresh ones, they make you stand out a little bit as crusted over ones. No, but people all notice your phone system. And actually, quite frankly, it's any business that you're in. Everyone knows the quality of the phone call. Call. That's where it all begins. And that's everyone. You're always judged by that. I don't care. The car you drive, that Porsche, that's.

Gotta be a great business. Their phone service.

Is that a nextiva? Is that an Extiva phone system? Oh my gosh, here's my money. Nextiva will do that for you. Learn how by going to nextiva.com. and then of course, there's Receipt Bank. That's the second thing. People are so critical about two things I've noticed in life. Your phone and your receipts. You ever see someone with that wallet that's just packed with receipts, just overflowing receipts every day? Oh, you're one of the people. I get very judgy, quite frankly. I'm like, do they really even care about their receipts? Do they even categorize anything in their life? Are they just a gross. That's what I see when I see someone carrying around receipts like that.

So judgy.

I'm very judgy. And I think most of the world is very judgy about receipt collection collections. So Receipt bank actually addresses that and they notice this problem. They notice how you're being judged. They said, no more. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to scan those receipts. No one will know about your fetish of going to that podiatrist who caresses your foot all the time, collecting his receipts and then sniffing the receipts. No one needs to know that you do that. They scan them all in. No one has to deal with your fetish receipt bank check them out.

Yeah. Obviously super important.

What'd you learn today? Oh, let me hit the tunes.

So what'd you learn today?

Oh neck the of.

Yeah. So I loved learning that people don't like change that she lost you guys.

Speaking to the microphone there. Your paper loves hearing from you but the microphone would really enjoy it.

So I devote photo my notes. I love that people don't like change. She lost 10% of her business by moving to a better nicer.

Yeah. Big insight.

Right Location. Yeah. Really big insight.

Yeah. That was actually shocking. It was shocking, but it was not because I know.

Yeah.

When my any of my providers make a move it doesn't trigger the fact that they're moving somewhere else. It just is a reconsideration. Oh, do I want to stay.

Exactly.

You know.

Exactly. And I'm sure in the long run you make up the difference and it probably you come out better for it. But still that's it's.

But those are is the word for only 5 miles customers mean they're coming to out of just the routine.

Yeah.

But not because they value you. Yeah. So maybe it's not bad to lose those customers anyway.

I also I love that because she never gives discounts for a service that people need. When she does offer it, it's very smartly done where she knows she's gonna make the return on it. She knows she's guaranteeing the work for the next year. Like that's so smart.

I almost felt compelled to buy a Black Friday discount from her.

Yeah. And I'm just gonna fly to Phoenix.

I know. Yeah, exactly. Even though it's gonna cost me $1,000, it's worth it.

I got the discount.

And even though I don't have a muscular neuromuscular therapy issue needing a resolution right now.

That's what you think.

Yeah, exactly. Here's what I took away. First of all, I never heard this insight before. If you are taking out loans, you are moving too fast.

Yeah.

What a great summary. Boom.

And so smart to not open a second location because I feel like right there's that lure. Customers need me there.

Yeah.

It'll work out. But really she'd be splitting up her, you know, her existing customer base.

Yep.

To take on more expenses.

And I think the other thing was those magazines like that was interesting that the magazines really a stack of magazine represents waiting time and you're really trying to placate people's weight.

Yeah.

Through magazines don't placate the weight with magazines. I just serve customers.

You don't even know it.

I know, I know. I didn't know it. Don't placate the weight. That should be. We have all these quotes on these shirts. It should be a shirt with like a thousand quotes on. So people have to come up to you. They have to look with a magnifying glass at your shirt and say what does that say?

That's actually a great idea. We should put all your words on one show.

Yeah, let's do that. Everything. Yeah, don't placate the way. Maybe we can put some smart isms on there too. Like don't placate the weight. One of Mike's smart isms.

Literally the only smartism.

Yeah, well, we'll find out in our swerve or whatever that was that word you used.

Surway. Okay.

Surway. Surway. Yeah. When we get our sir way done. All right. Do we have any listener mail today? You've got mail pattern baldness.

A long one comes from Alex and Sabrina.

Oh, is it double read along with you.

They say their business may be a little unique as they do all their selling from their website. They sell candle and soap supplies and their business is growing fast. The part that they have a question about is they ship a lot of items. When they do this, their software they have to prepay for the shipments. Oh, so if we. If they follow the 1025 bill payment, then how do they ship the items every day? Of course they would assume they will have to figure a way around this. So each day would be still drawn the funds out of the account to cover their purchases. And that is another question they have when they need supplies.

Yes.

Bags, toner, ink or paper. How do they pay for these items?

Do you More. There's more. That's fine. So. And I can't buster chops because it was actually.

Well, actually this is an important question. Question. Do they charge everything on their credit cards and pay the bill twice a month?

So here's the 1025 rule. The idea is we need to get into a rhythm. If we're doing daily, we're doing reactionary. And it's very hard to get a gauge of the outflow and inflow of cash. So if you're required to pay daily, you need to build up a reserve of cash. Here's what I do as a one time transaction. All those deposits and sales you have for a week. Put everything into OPEX just this one time so you can build up a reserve of operating expenses. Then all subsequent deposits, you go through the profit first method accumulates in the income account and then every two weeks it gets allocated to the other accounts. But because we put a large chunk of money in the OPEX account, you can now pay your daily shipments whenever it's needed because the funds are in the OPEX account. Then when you do the allocation. So income or replenishing opex. And now you'll start getting a measurement if there's enough money there. So it's that simple. You just need to. To fund OPEX in advance. And then of course, I would look to negotiate too, with any vendor. I don't care if it's Pitney Bows or some of these large vendors. Try negotiating. You'll be surprised what you can get if you simply negotiate. You agree with all that? We're good.

Beautiful.

It was. It was pretty good. That was pretty good. All right, do we have anything else? Kelsey, let's get the hell out of here.

But please leave us a review and send me the screenshot to Kelsey. K E L s e y makethecalowitz.com.

Yeah, because. And you get. For the screenshot, you get a book. Yeah, like a book of your choice. Now are we. Are we sending them through Penguin or are we shipping ourselves? We are. And they're. They're not bitching and moaning. Oh, we're doing in a batch now or something. Right. Okay. Is Amy doing that?

Me.

Okay. Okay, good. So do that. We listen. Listen. Well, as long as we can milk this cow. Let's do it, baby.

Yeah.

You send us the screenshots, we send you the books.

Fill out our survey.

Yes, fill out the survey way. Where is the sir way?

It's gonna be on Mike McCallis dot com.

Okay, so yeah, we gotta figure out how to get this word out. I guess you'll put in the show notes, right?

Yeah.

So look at the show notes. Fill our surway. We'll make some shirts, maybe put all the phrases on there and let's get it out.

There are you might be the lucky winner of a shirt.

You might be a prophet first pervert.

You say? A prophet.

Profit first pervert. All right, guys, it's always a joy working with you. And one last thing. I do have Surge available for free right now. You can go to mikemotorbike.com that's the shortcut to Mike McCallowitz. Click on get my at the top of the page, get my free book. And sure enough, you'll get Surge for free instantaneously. It's on a PDF. No shipping cost? No, nothing. Just start reading and start growling. All right, let's do this together. Let's eradicate on trail poverty and let's, you know, have entrepreneurship elevate all that stuff up. Yeah.

Bye, everybody.

Later, guys. Fat Daddy, Fat.

Sam.